


Floating Down the Styx

by Sangerin



Category: Spooks
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-10-14
Updated: 2007-10-14
Packaged: 2017-10-24 10:06:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/262235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sangerin/pseuds/Sangerin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That life was over, and it was time to think of the future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Floating Down the Styx

**Author's Note:**

> Hints at a sequel. I'm not promising anything.
> 
> Spoilers to 5.5

She felt oddly peaceful, watching Harry on the wharf, getting smaller and further away. She'd been oddly peaceful for quite some time now, and she assumed that reaction would set in at some point in the future. It usually did. But for now she knew that she was safe, Harry was safe, the Section was safe, and she was at peace with what she'd done.

Zaf had talked her through the night, and through her plans. He'd curled next to her, warm and soft. He'd held her hand and been a shoulder to lean on, the way Danny used to be there, no matter what was going on. He'd listened to her fears and shared her dreams, and he'd held her, arm around her shoulders, through the coldest part of her final night as herself.

Malcolm's farewell gift to her was, in fact, her freedom. A new identity, with a magically infinite supply of cash. She didn't want to know how he'd done it, and she certainly did not want to know where the money was coming from, but she was grateful, and wished that she could tell him face-to-face. He'd been unfailingly sweet to the end, in circumstances where not many people would have been able to bear to stay friends.

They were two of a kind, she'd realised at some point in their friendship. They could love without return, although not without cost to themselves. Ruth knew how hard it was to work alongside someone for whom you had feelings, even when those feelings were nascent, and firmly clamped down beneath professionalism and friendship.

It was almost funny, how bad their timing had been. She loved Harry, had loved Harry for more than a year, but she'd come to terms with it, as she had done before. She could have lived her life as it was, with the odd crush here and there, coupled with the certainty that each night she would go home to her apartment and her cat and that this would be her life.

Until Harry decided to seize the day, or whatever it was that he decided, and suddenly her world had turned upside down and right way up and upside down again. Being loved by someone she loved herself was so unexpected that she froze and then froze again. Never mind that, until she was there on the boat he hadn't attempted to say the words. She knew what desire without love looked like: that was not beyond her experience. She knew Harry loved her, and didn't need him to say it. Couldn't have borne leaving if he had said it. And for his safety, for his career and his livelihood and for the rest of the team, she had to leave. And not even hearing Harry tell her he loved her could be allowed to get in the way.

It was over before it began: that life was over, and it was time to think of the future. Of the continent at the end of this boat ride: of the best place to go, beyond current operations, somewhere to hide away for a while. To nurse the reactions she knew would flood her.

When she recovered – which would be soon, she told herself, straightening her spine, she would begin her search.


End file.
